Drive to Build Jewish Museum in Warsaw Meets Ambivalence

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: March 10, 1996

WARSAW—
In the belief that Poles should understand more about the long history of Jews in their country than the abbreviated account of the Holocaust taught in schools, an effort is under way to build a Jewish museum here.

Supporters of the project say the museum, intended to show the intertwining lives of Jews and other Poles over 700 years, would help dispel anti-Semitism and educate young Poles about Polish-Jewish history. But both at home and abroad there is ambivalence.

American Jewish organizations, who are expected to be among the major donors, say they will not consider financing the museum until the Government pays restitution for Jewish property confiscated by the Nazis and then nationalized by the Communists after World War II.

The museum's backers, who include curators at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, also say they must overcome a view among some Jews that after the killing of three million Polish Jews it is not worth artificially reviving a dead culture.

After several years of lobbying, the museum's Polish organizers, spearheaded by a former Foreign Minister, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, said they had won a Government pledge of $150,000 in seed money last July. But the check has not arrived.

"They promise, they promise but don't deliver," said Grazyna Pawlak, the chief fund-raiser, who until recently was the executive director of the Jewish Historical Institute here. "It's a great scandal."

The executive director of the World Jewish Congress, Ilan Steinberg, said he applauded the idea of raising Poland's consciousness about the rich Jewish culture that thrived in small towns and big cities.

But, he added, "The eagerness of the Jewish community to help the museum is linked with the attitude of the Polish Government toward the restitution of Jewish property."

Talks over restitution have dragged on since the collapse of Communism. There has been less progress in Poland than in some other countries in Central Europe.

Krzysztof Sliwinski, an official in the Polish Foreign Ministry responsible for liaison with Jewish groups overseas, said he had encountered mixed reactions to the museum. "There are people who believe that all remaining objects and documents related to Jewish history should be transferred to Israel as there is no more Jewish life in Poland," Mr. Sliwinski said.

But Ms. Pawlak and Jewish museum specialists disagree.

"You have young people here today who have no idea who the Jews were or what they represented," said Bill Gross, a collector of Judaica in Israel who is assisting Ms. Pawlak. "So you get a situation where anti-Semitic statements are made by prominent Poles and the young don't know what to make of it. The museum would result in a whole different teaching of Jewish history."

Ms. Pawlak, a Polish Jew born after World War II, said the museum would reflect the vicissitudes of Polish Jewish life in contrast to the monuments, cemeteries and remnants of concentration camps that have become a tourist industry.

She has met "understandable" opposition from Polish Jews in Israel and the United States, she said.

A prominent Jew in New York who was born in Poland refused to donate to the museum in Warsaw, Ms. Pawlak recalled. "Then I asked her if she would come to the opening and very spontaneously she said: 'Yes.' "

"This is because Polish Jews abroad hate Poland for many reasons," Ms. Pawlak said. "They see Poland very, very painfully as a cemetery. But at the bottom of their heart is something different. This is their homeland."